Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Issue #6

i too dream of the children's deathsand all of Africa's sky is filled with hungerpain still holds the weapon of anxietythe real war is inside me

a letter to some black boy with only one armhe writes of hope and somewhere half aroundthe world there is tears and guilt embeddedin the alphabet

the burning sun sets and lions feed on laughinghyenas, vultures of fun and in the eyes ofa missionary, cutting God out of the land, forgottenand our crimes are obesity, money, greedlife's undying need we tell us

as Africa continues to bleednight trace

the trees are hungover, drained of allthe snow its branches must carryand cancer is stuck on the icy milky waythis bleak season where light must suffermy nerves on my face are frozen and i try tostretch them with my palm but nothing butblood comes out

there is frost in my heart, taken from yourillusion of heaven and it rains skulls frommy own cheap hell, words and worlds arefictional things, like an illness in the broken windyou are gone but like a ghost youmove in my tired nights, i count the feathersfallen behind your instant trace but you're still...

the tree agrees with winter, withits silly death spread to everythingeven the yawning rootsthat love forgot

and on a clear day i can see therape that the tree does to everyray of sunlighteverything's broken within mebutmemoryofyouremainsBiography Note:

Amanda Boschetto lives in Sweden. She has one chapbook with deadbeatpress and one forthcoming with epic rites in 2010 as well a couple of poems in a few zines. She has facebook at; www.facebook.com/amanda.boschetto

The ShredderKenneth Pobo

Jezziaro’s Used Cars has

a today-only sale on vans.

Super-size your car, the ad says.

We nail our kids into activity schedules.

After Internet porn, chat rooms,

and Google, we watch the latest

metroplex movie--about a terrorist

who works at Burger King, poisons our fries,

gets away with murder. Home again,

we shred trash which reveals

information about us, turn the lock,

steady ourselves with the TV’s glow.Biography Note:

Kenneth Pobo had a book of poems published in 2008 from WordTech Press called Glass Garden . His online chapbook, Crazy Cakes, also came out in 2008 and can be accessed at http//scars.tv. Kenneth's chapbook, “Trina and the Sky,” won the 2009 Main Street Rag chapbook contest.

Iris has logged 30k hours in hands-on healing work. Iris wrote her first poem at nine. A staunch advocate of mirth, Iris laughs belly laughs daily as exercise against becoming too serious. Iris invites inspiration with all her senses from a multi-universe. http://www.samuraidragonfly.blogspot.com/

Two Poems by Ben Nardolilli

Under Certain Conditions

The smokestack and the whole poisonous family

Belching away at the sky, with no apology,

To end to the dirty painting and the muted singing,

Can make you think, what was here before,

What was lost for this gain?

The bottles on the shore with black water inside

And burnt-out cigarettes, messages

From those stranded a shore away,

You look at them and wonder if the waves

Had any idea they were moving anything polluting,

Like the backs of rats giving free rides to flees.

The strip mall was a functional emporium,

You know that, but still, you ask out loud

Because the muzak gives you the freedom of the muzzle,

Why it could not look at least a bit different

From the one you passed by down the road.

But the rose that opens up like your lover’s face,

In the middle of the field with every stalk in its place,

And the sky holding no storm in its canopy,

With every thorn a perfect aquiline, and the petals

Right in their number, the color of moving blood,

You are quiet, you understand, you have no more questions.A Spring Enclosed

How could I have avoided you,

All those years in Catholic school

And you were so pale,

Pale as the virgin, and those

Who surrounded her, and like them

Your dark hair flowing down your head

Made for a convenient veil,

And when all you let me see

Was your neck and ankles,

You expected me to think of you

As someone just in it for the money?

No, you pretended to be his bride,

Even though you did not believe

He was heaven sent, or in heaven itself,

But when I found out you had not made

A home in any man’s bed, I told you

The black was no longer necessary,

And that you could cut your hair,

Tan your skin, you were clean of heart,

Even if you said your mouth had kissed the streets.Biography Note:

Ben Nardolilli is a twenty three year old writer currently living in Arlington, Virginia. His work has appeared in Houston Literary Review, Perigee Magazine, Canopic Jar, Lachryma: Modern Songs of Lament, Baker’s Dozen, Thieves Jargon, Farmhouse Magazine, Elimae, Poems Niederngasse, Gold Dust, The Delmarva Review, Underground Voices Magazine, SoMa Literary Review, Heroin Love Songs, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue, Cantaraville, and Perspectives Magazine. In addition, he was the poetry editor for West 10th Magazine at NYU and maintains a blog at mirrorsponge.blogspot.com.

Oh, please. They didn’t sneak into the country to be your friends.-Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development.FriendsPaul Handley

The largesse involved in making friends

is offset by, well, having friends.

My balance sheet overrunneth with credits.

Thank you cards a must, especially

a thank you for a thank you,

so as to keep on the ledger’s best side.

Terms of contacts and networking gather warmth,

when congeal beneath a layer of loyalty.

Admiration of political ideas while impractical

and lack principle, allow me to be part

of a panorama of you, and me,

a bar, or restaurant and the aura of your success

and blandly handsome anchor man looks,

to friends of others who want to walk onto the set.

Only ones I trust are from before I fall

or have success and I have had both,

and even before I had both, I kinda had both.

Biography Note:

Paul Handley spent a career as a student and a student of odd jobs. He has an MA, an MPA, and is ABD. He has driven a cab and sold meat door-to-door. Paul has work included or forthcoming in Anemone Sidecar, Apollo’s Lyre, Boston Literary Magazine, The Shine Journal, and others.DoloresJustin Ehrlich

Indifferent eyes burn with cruel

Restraint, calculating malign

Designs; unstirred by Golden rule.

Her icy fingers hold a shrine…

My queen of suffering presents

A coruscating crown of thorns

While whispering sweet sentiments;

Stigmata kisses reign forlorn.

Snowflakes pulse vellum arteries.

She tastes the shapes of altered states,

Adrift in abstract quiddities.

In reverence before her gates:

I took a sparkling razorblade

And tore my flesh with vigorous

Calligraphy: a serenade

To my eternal Dolores.

Unveiling my ripped, ravaged chest

I proudly flaunt the spoils of love.

She ordered I expunge my breast

With acid, and a kitchen glove.

The brittle diamonds of despair

Fall flippantly from out my tongue.

Responding with a solar-flare

From the inferno of her lung:

‘One day I’ll push you to the skirt

Of reason; snapping sanity

Unleashes rage, repressed, inert:

You’ll strangle my last breath from me…

Through placid wreaths of floral smoke

I spied psychosis in your eyes;

Amidst the verdant words you spoke,

I heard a buzzing plague of flies.’

Nails oxidized by pity pierce

Emaciated flesh in tuned

Compliant silence. My last tierce

Of famished pride drains from each wound.

Forsaken on this crucifix,

The desert sun swarms blistered bone:

I thirst for vinegar-laced lips!

My vulture goddess long has flown.

Biography Note:

Justin Ehrlich was born in 1985. He holds honours in philosophy and learned to appreciate the aesthetic of a theory over and above significance. His poetry has been published online in Pens on Fire, The-Beat, Ancient Heart, Gloom Cupboard, and The Recusant.

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Callused Hands

About Us

Here at Callused Hands we don’t care who you are, where you’ve been or what you’ve accomplished. All we care about is the work you’ve created. We are interested in poetry and flash fiction that ordinary people would read. Please send us your poems or flash fiction in the body of an e-mail to editor.callusedhands@yahoo.com.